DGCA team inspects Mumbai airport facilities

Mumbai: A high-level team of officials
from the Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA)
Saturday inspected the Mumbai airport in the wake of the recent
spate of aircraft-related incidents, both on air and on
ground.

The team, led by DGCA`s Joint Director General A K
Sharan, visited the airport and held meetings with all stake
holders, sources close to the development said here.

The sources, however, described the visit as a
`routine exercise` but said the team "conducted a general
survey of the airport facilities and also assessed the runway
conditions at the Mumbai airport."

Besides meeting with the Mumbai Airport International
Limited (MIAL) authorities, the DGCA team also met officials
of airlines operating out of the airport and those of the Air
Traffic Control, the source said.

The experts` team inspected various facilities,
including those relating to passengers, navigation,
communication, ATC and runway lights.

The airport has, of late, witnessed a series of
incidents like near-misses and runway incursions.

Recently, airport operations were severely affected by
the closure of the main runway for over an hour after a Blue
Dart cargo flight broke some runway lights while proceeding
for a take off.

The newly-constructed Terminal I-C also got water-
logged earlier this week due to rains. The terminal,
constructed at a cost of Rs 300 crore, remained closed for
passengers for nearly five hours, delaying flights by over
one-and-half hour.

On May 28, a major disaster was averted when an IndiGo
flight, which was instructed by the ATC to move to a taxi bay
due to a technical snag, got into the runway where a Jet
Airways flight was cleared for landing.

A disaster was averted after the ATC asked the Jet
pilot to abort the landing and make a go-around.

Again on June 4, a SpiceJet aircraft got stuck on the
same runway where a Kingfisher Airlines flight from Delhi was
slated to land, forcing it to do a go-around.

Mumbai airport was privatised along with the Delhi
airport by the government in 2006 despite strong protests. It
is being modernised and developed by MIAL, a joint venture
company of Airports Authority of India and GVK-led consortium,
at a cost of Rs 9,800 crore.